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Virtue-signalling, vacuous middle class leftists are all talk and no action
According to many a Corbyn-cheering, well-heeled leftist, modern Britain resembles an unjust, “neoliberal” dystopia in which the Evil Tories and their Evil Banker friends leech off the real producers and heroes in our society (usually people who are net recipients of government spending, curiously recast as the being most virtuous of all).
To this mindset, George Osborne is not simply wrong on the economics, he is engaging in a deliberate war of attrition against the poor, and Iain Duncan Smith’s abortive efforts to reform the welfare state were part of a Nazi-inspired eugenics programme to kill off the sick and disabled.
All of which begs the question – if David Cameron’s centrist, soul-sappingly unimaginative Conservative government really is evil incarnate, why do its many opponents content themselves with mere polite protest and ineffectual rants on social media?
If I believed for a moment that the state was engaged in a deliberate extermination of its weakest and most vulnerable citizens, I hope to think that I would have the moral clarity and fortitude to either take up arms against the government or to work for its downfall using every skill and talent at my disposal. And yet those who actually do believe that the Tories are “evil” can usually be found clad in skinny jeans and non-prescription hipster glasses, waging “resistance” via their (capitalism-produced) smartphones while sipping a hand-crafted flat white.
My Conservatives for Liberty colleague Martin Bailey sums up this moral hypocrisy perfectly in a piece entitled “The impotence of the middle-class Left”.
Bailey writes:
If I thought that the world was controlled by a secret ‘Neo-Liberal’ elite that oversaw government and mass media across the globe, I would do something about it. Take up arms, man a barricade, refuse to comply. If I genuinely believed that democracy was a sham and we were all willing drones to corporate bosses, I wouldn’t stand for it.
So what do they do? They sit in comfort and plenty streaming idle profanities across Twitter and Starbucks. They can’t even find an independent coffee shop in which to plan the revolution. Anonymous abuse of anyone on social media who dares to question their orthodoxy is about as rebellious as a wet fart in an empty train carriage. Che would be turning in his grave.
The EU referendum is a perfect example of stupefying left wing impotence, with thousands of social justice warriors happy to forget the glaring absence of democracy and willing to accept the biggest corporatist cartel in history, all for the fear that someone they know may or may not lose their job. I guess the revolution will have to wait, eh Comrade?
Read the whole piece, it is a highly entertaining takedown of the Left’s hypocrisy and wilful misunderstanding of capitalism.
And to my mind, there are only two explanations for the gulf between the Virtue Signalling Left’s angry talk and their lack of action commensurate with the inhuman Evil Tory threat that they constantly decry.
Option 1 – The left-wing outrage at the present Conservative (often in name only) government is completely fake, in which case the failure of its opponents to take concrete action makes perfect sense – after all, they are only invoking the memory of the Holocaust as a cynical political ploy to demonise their opponents and paint them as heartless and deliberately cruel.
Option 2 – Their outrage is genuine and they honestly believe that conservatives have blood on their hands, but they are also too cowardly to risk their own relatively privileged and comfortable lives by coming to the aid of the supposedly oppressed. In other words, the middle class Left are happy to parade their hatred of the Evil Tory Scum on social media and to friends, but would continue to let society’s most vulnerable people suffer and die before than risking their coveted London homes, worldly possessions and personal liberty by backing up their fighting words with real action.
Manipulative cynics or moral cowards. The only question remaining is which reflects worse on the virtue-signalling middle class Left?
Postscript: I happen to believe that most middle class leftists fall into Option 1. It’s trendy to moan about how beastly the Evil Tories are being, and posting a few IDS-as-Hitler memes on the internet is a good way to quickly signal to other bovine minded people that you are one of the “good guys”.
But that’s not to say that there are not also a number of credulous cowards out there – that is, people who genuinely believe the anti-Tory effluence which pours from their mouths and keyboards, but are too darn selfish to risk anything of theirs by physically attempting to stop the genocide that they believe is underway.
More Left Wing Hate Watch here.
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Semi-Partisan Politics 
bah i bet this author was one of the first Tory boys whining on and on about how disgusting the left are because someone threw an egg at a conference goer. Then they come out wiht tripe about why are we not staging a military coup?
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If you mean was I disgusted when barmy left-wing protesters defaced a war memorial because they couldn’t stand that they lost the election? Yes. But my point stands: if the most virulent anti-Tory protesters mean what they say about the government deliberately killing off the vulnerable, then I would think they would have a duty to use all means necessary to stop it. I wouldn’t approve of a coup, because I think this government is moderately incompetent but not deliberately evil, but all those who say that IDS is a Nazi etc. should certainly be putting their money where their mouth is, not just posting smarmy memes on social media.
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by that logic do you also blame the Jews who did not take up arms and fight against Hitler in the 30’s?
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No, because that’s not the logic I’m using (bonus points for bringing Hitler into the discussion so quickly, by the way). The left claim to be outraged on behalf of the oppressed, they do not all claim to be oppressed themselves. If you actually read the piece (controversial, I know) you’ll see that it refers to the middle class left-wing, who are happy to parade their virtue on social media and accuse the Tories of all manner of dastardly and inhuman things, but who also think that a few angry tweets a day counts as a meaningful solution.
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Thank you Dilys. 4th July is now in my diary. I have time to plan that the Green Party contingent all wear T shirts saying “Citizens’ Basic Income. not Universal Credit”.
Sam, you can’t have it both ways. You should be relieved that the occasional vandalism you have complained of has not yet escalated to violent overthrow . It won’t because the sheer cruelty is limited to the 4million who are supposed to be receiving the Universal credit, but won’t until May 2021 on the latest ‘promise’.
http://www.clivelord.wordpress.com
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People are scared to revolt. Those on zero contracts are frightened to lose their low paid low hours jobs because they won’t be able to get another one and won’t get any unemployment benefit. As you don’t have a job for life there days, even if quite well paid you’re frightened of losing it.
In most cases if you more your job you’re likely to lose your home – rented or mortgaged. People just can’t afford to rebel or strike.
It’s only people like myself that own their own house outright and are retired. So that there is nothing the government can threaten us with.
I’m not sure how many pensioners in my position would be willing to rebel or if it would be effective.
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I agree in the main with the previous replies, there is more going on than meets the rather jaundiced eye of the writer, both locally and nationally. I would also defend constant use of social media to get ‘the message’ out there as by and large most people have to rely on a right wing press and an increasingly more biased BBC for information. So a deal of the problem is getting folks to see beyond the daily propaganda as spewed out by mainstream media.
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This is utter bollocks from a middle class bloke who never did anything about anything. The left would be completely stupid to take the law entirely into its own hands. We are trying to replace a dictatorship not create another one. We are also attempting to organise JOINT action and, thanks to dimwits like this guy, we are out of practice. Besides, the left always finds it hard to find consensus, but it’s happening, believe me. Many of us are working incredibly hard behind all the loud criticism. Consistent canvassing and encouragement of discussion is the way to overturn the Tories by democratic means. Doing our homework will also prevent us behaving like the ignorant Tories. It can be done and it will be done. Meanwhile – we have called quite a serious day of action – strikes, demos and local events – involving 100s of thousands of people – on July 4th. Come if you dare, and wear your Superman suit if you must!
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Well said Dilys. He would pick up arms if he really thought this government were doing the things they are accused of? Man barricades? Yeah right! Again – Well said.
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Much sense there. Furthermore when SPS refers to people who are
…”usually people who are net recipients of government spending, curiously recast as the being most virtuous of all” …
he ignores the iniquity of a system that underpays the workers because their contribution has been maliciously devalued by monetarist priorities whilst at the same time enriching the minority not for their contribution but through their possession of capital.
Low paid workers may often receive more in tax credits and other forms of assistance than they pay in tax, but such an analysis does not reflect their actual contribution to society which is their labour – labour upon which society is built from the burger flipper to the potato picker to the care worker.
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